The Centre-appointed committee chaired by Justice (Retd.) M L Mehta in its report has recommended an ‘automatic annual fare revision’. The 4th FCC has recommended fare hike of seven per cent.

Delhi Metro fare hike to be on auto mode, next round likely on January (File Photo)

Fares of Delhi Metro are likely to go up in January, 2019 on recommendation of Fare Fixation Committee (FCC), a Centre-appointed committee authorised to fix mass rapid transit’s commuting tariff.

The Centre-appointed committee chaired by Justice (Retd.) M L Mehta in its report has recommended an ‘automatic annual fare revision’. The 4th FCC has recommended fare hike of seven per cent. The two-phase fare hike effected in May and October was recommended by the same committee.

The committee has also recommended that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to revise the fares once in a year based on an automatic fare revision formula which takes into account increase in cost of staff, maintenance, energy and the Consumer Price Index or seven percent per annum.

According to the committee report, the revised fares are to be implemented on January 1 every year.

The committee in its report said, “Äll the hike should be rounded off to the next rupee.”

An RTI query recently revealed that the Delhi Metro lost over three lakh commuters a day after a steep fare hike came into effect on October 10, an RTI query has revealed. The fare hike lead to a rise of around Rs 10 for nearly every distance slab. The metro's daily average ridership came down to 24.2 lakh in October from 27.4 lakh in September, translating to a fall of around 11 per cent. The metro currently has a 218-km network across Delhi-NCR.